Packages come and packages go. Countless packages in countless corrugated boxes cross our shipping bays every day. As part of our overall effort to reduce our carbon emissions from paper consumption, we examined our practices and made several significant changes to our outbound corrugate usage after studying the results

We buy hundreds of tons of corrugate for our outbound packages each year, and found that corrugate is one of the most efficient uses of recycled fiber—more than 80 percent of corrugated boxes in the U.S. are recycled. We also measured the strength of our corrugate to understand the minimum requirements of our customers for “burst test” and “crush test” standards.

A new contract we recently entered into for purchased corrugate used for outbound packages takes into consideration all that we have learned. This contract leverages both recycled corrugate and mill-specific suppliers. Our new supplier’s Scope 1 and 2 emissions are two-thirds less than the previous supplier and 30 percent less than the industry average, while also containing 70 percent post-consumer recycled fiber.

And we don’t plan to stop here. Going forward, we are looking at further refinements, including partnering with printers and changing corrugate specifications on inbound product to get the greatest amount of corrugate from a ton of fiber.

Packages may come and packages may go, but less carbon is emitted from the boxes making those journeys today.